The website for midwives the voice of union activists Labornotes reports that a South Korean Hyundai Motor worker set himself afire Sunday after management refused his request to slow down the line. The 44-year-old unionist, Shin Sung-hun, is in critical condition. According to the site, Shin poured paint thinner over and set fire to himself .

As a result, union members at the plant refused to work overtime, which crippled production of sport utility vehicles at Hyundai and Kia. Management agreed to make a public apology and to reprimand some supervisors.

That done, Hyundai said it would seek damages caused by the union’s action.

If the line is going fast enough to make you want to set yourself ablaze I wonder if quality is taking a nosedive. Hyundai’s initial success was destroyed by the “Build as many as you can at all costs” mentality. Rushed production and irate workers is not a recipe for building great cars.

No, dude, if you think your employer is treating you unfairly… light yourself on goddamn fire. They may doubt your sanity, but never your commitment!

Or, failing that level of devotion… you could do the sane, adult, and responsible thing instead. Take the initiative, man up, and go find another job. This appears to be as equally lost on South Korean workers as it is on their union counterparts here in the States, albeit with slightly different results.

Don’t worry about it, Mikey. Mr. Finfrock is the type of guy who carries a plastic spork into a gun fight, and then wonders why he always misses. He’s redundant, predictable, and cliched, but not much more than that.

Holy crap. Could you even imagine the news if a Big 3 line worker did this at an American plant? In the US automotive union, the three most shocking news topics we have are Bob King, his glasses, and Chrysler workers getting high and drunk on their lunch break.

The dude was an idiot. I can understand (barely) doing something like this to protest an oppressive government. This guy had a complaint about the job he worked in voluntarily. He could’ve hurt a lot of people who DIDN’T want to be lit on fire with this stunt.

But before I leave, I hope the commenters read the labornotes link in the OP. Key take aways:

– an average worker at Hyundai/Kia works 2,657 hours a year, about 600 hours longer than an average assembly line worker.
– Shin was raising concerns about high defect rates caused by high-speed production.
– Shin pointed out that the plant shipped out defective engines

The link is pro-union, so I’d like to hear the other side of the story. Regardless, the comments here aren’t from the Best and the Brightest. Call me Bewildered and emBarrassed.

Yea South Korea is a free country with a strong economy, a sane person would quit. This isn’t like Foxcon where employees are treated like animals (according to the CEO) and kept locked in the factory at all times.

…many east asian cultures have a long-established tradition of self-immolation as form of political protest: as shocking as it comes across to western audiences, it’s a comparatively unexceptional expression of martyrdom to bring attention to one’s cause-du-jour over there…

…certainly it’s no less sorrowful a circumstance in context, but the popular romanticisation of self-immolation has lead to it becoming a relatively commonplace act in the face of apparently-unassailable frustrations, enough so that the greater populations tend to shrug it off as just another blip in the noise society at large…

…my point is that as terrible as this act may come across from our perspective, the disincentive to this sort of martyrdom can be low enough in many asian cultures that it’s not necessarily indicative of grossly exploitative working conditions: a distressed worker with metal health issues over there could more-readily be pushed to this sort of act than seems normal to our experience over here…

I don’t think the OP made much of a dig at unions or spun this event to make a point. I read it over again to make sure, the tone wasn’t somber by any means, more “as a matter of fact.” Even if there was a little jab, what respect is there to be given to someone that doesn’t even respect themselves? Someone set themselves on fire because work was stressful? If that were a logical response to work stress, we’d all be aflame by lunch.

He could have done something else like, oh, I don’t know, not set himself on fire. That’s generally the first step to avoiding self-immolation. Oh, and finding a different job he could have been happier with.

What a shame. If he survives, I hope he gets help for whatever issues he has that caused this. Unfortunately, life is cheap in some other countries. If I was an executive at Hyundai, I wouldn’t be sleeping too well for the foreseeable future.

No more jokes or puns. Sounds to me like he was very frustrated
after raising serious concerns and was not listened to. You would
probably go nuts too if you worked a mind-numbing job 51 hours a week.

I always admired the great writing on this site by readers. The good writing of the articles inspires good responses. Now, not so much.
Wake up, people. Have some respect for this man’s life and think about your good fortune, riding around in VERY nice cars made with what is tantamount to slave labor.

+1 mor2bz……..this sight has had some great writing on autos and things auto………but those in charge seem to have a disrespect for law, law enforcement, and human life? Yesterdays rants on LEO’s and todays rants on labor (although expected here) have me reorganizing my bookmarks……..

I worked in a burn unit for a while. Most people don’t know that in just about every major burn unit and psych hospital in North America there is always someone who tried to kill themselves by setting themselves on fire, but lived. The result is massive third degree burns. Takes months and multiple operations to fix them because so little alive skin is left for grafting. The process is incredibly painful. The man in the picture is guaranteed to die. I left the burn unit because I couldn’t take dealing with the burned kids. Couldn’t cope with it emotionally.

@ Les….In order for an assembly line to run faster “jobs per hour” =JPH, you need more space, and more people. It impossible to take a line that was designed to run 50 JPH and make it run at 80 JPH. If you need 20 feet to complete your job assingment,and you only have 18 ft,it don’t work.

In the seventies and eighties GM tried to make it work,with limited sucess.

I worked Oshawa#1 B plant in the eighties. We had that plant running 60+JPH. The plant was built in the fifties and designed for 45 to 50 JPH. We tripped over each other,hoses,and other tools got tangled. Complex emmision systems of that era,added to the confusion.

The washrooms were backed up, in more than one way. In the fifties there were no women in the plant. GM had to convert mens rooms over to women rooms. Tempers were short,and fist fights were not uncommon.

However through it all myself and fellow CAW/UAW workers built some pretty fine cars. Even up here in rust country, you still see some old B Chevy’s.

Finally somebody higher up got smart. They gutted the place in 85,then again in 88.

Today they got one of the most modern,state of the art,flexible lines in the world.

As one who survives on a GM Canada pension,hopefully its not too little,too late.